Thursday, 24 December 2009

I had a defiler lying about that i got off a friend that had quite a bit of paint on it and some bits missing. I was thinking of putting it on ebay for a tenner, but had a brainwave at about 3am a few days ago about converting it to a nurgle defiler for my 1.5k Plague Marine army. I'm pretty pleased with the results:

I'm beginning to firm up more the (admittedly not written-in-stone) distinction between 'More of' and 'More From'. I think it makes sense to situate the stories on a continuum ranging from 'More Of' stories through 'More From' to 'More Than' in terms of their relative degree of transformation of the canon.

More Of: Stories that offer us 'more of ' the 40K universe: focusing on war/grimdark (bolter-porn of Ultramarines V Orks), extending exisiting narratives (see below) or the stories of existing characters. I would also include within this attempts to write in a self-conscious BL style (maybe for publications, maybe for security).

More From: attempts to situate a story within the W40K universe, but to tell a story different than the typical BL-fare (what I termed 'Refocusing the Camera' below)

More Than: (thanks for Sholto for suggesting this) where the author rejects the canon and attempts to tell a different story (the whole Horus Heresy was just a dream and Horus wakes up from a nightmare a laA Thief in the Night) or where they try really skew the canon in a different direction. Im guessing that humour could also be fitted in here as the author seems to be saying 'forget all this grimdark, lets have a laugh at it all'. I would also include stories here that tried to re-read non-40K stories through the lens of 40K. Possible examples:

Monday, 14 December 2009

My project looking at 40K fanfiction is just over a week old and is really going well (thanks especially to all the people who have taken the time to let me interview them). So far, I have interviewed 13 or so people out of the 20 that I had planned. The plan for the remainder of the interviews is to ask 4-5 different exploratory questions based on themes that have come up so far.

I've spent this morning beginning to make sense of the interview data, but the initial themes that have come up are:

**The role of Canon.

What i have found so far supports the idea that male fanfic authors tend to stay within the canon ('adding to'), rather than engaging in more transformative forms of writing. The 40K authors, in other words, would appear to want to produce 'more of' rather than necessarily do 'more with' the canon (i.e. transformative forms of literature). This would seem to be reproduced in both explicit ways (i.e. forum rules and critique of stories on fanfic sites) and implicitly through ideas of what George Herbert Mead might call 'Generalised Others': unstated ideas of what 40K fans/fan-authors 'out there' would think if they read one's story.

**Creativity & Originality.

Nevertheless, the authors emphasise creativity and originality in their work and in that of others. All the authors that I have spoken to articulated what made good and bad 40K fanfic, and invariably 'bad fanfic' was characterised as being poorly written, badly plotted, poorly characterised battle reports ('bolterporn' or 'warporn' as it was labelled by two interviewees).

**How to be Creative/Original in Someone Else's Universe.

Although the authors were keen to fit their work into the 40K canon, for them the canon has sufficient space within it for originality (in other words, staying within the canon and being original/creative are not mutually exclusive). Three spaces in particular were highlighted:

*Another Time, Another Place (Extending the Narrative): First, the 40K universe is vast and stretches across a wide historical vista, most of which has not been filled in through the Black Library books or GW codexes. The Horus Heresy novels, for example, take place in the 31st Millennia, two thousand years after the Great Founding and ten thousand years before the 41st Millennia that gives the game its name. While the millennia prior to the Horus Heresy are sketched out in broad brushstrokes within places such as the official 40K rulebook or the Space Marines Codex, it has not been officially fleshed out by GW/Black Library in novel form. On one level, fanfiction authors can set either their stories within one of these huge historical gaps (see, for example, fanfic by Nopoet set it 20th Millennia) or in a part of the 'contemporary' universe not explored in GW/BL novels.

*Exceptions Prove the Rule:Thirdly, fan authors can explore exceptions to the canon; simultaneously acknowledging the canon while moving away from it. Compare, for example, the description of a standard forgeworld with that found in the published story Phobos Worked in Adamant by Robey Jenkins (Planetkill, 2008).

*No Slash.

In his book on Star Wars fandom, Will Brooker makes the point that no one that he spoke to had ever heard of Slash fiction and that, indeed, he had to raise it with them (despite the fact that it dominates in academic discussions of fanfiction). This was my experience as well. While elements of the 40K universe could potentially be read in a Slashy or generally erotic way, I found little or no evidence of this among the fanfic writers (like Brooker I did not raise it unless the interview touched on adult content in the 40K universe). This is not to deny that there is erotic 40K fanfic (such as Succumus of Slaanesh by Firewind or A Sign of Loyalty by Grakul). It is clearly in the minority though.

At this point we get a bit more speculative, and I'd like to explore the following more in the remainder of my interviews:

**Why this emphasis on 'colouring within the lines'?

If you are writing a book for the Black Library then there are obviously limits to what you can write about due to what fans will accept/what will sell and what is suitable for age of the perceived audience (No Slaanesh Orgies Please, We're Under 16). But, if you write fanfic then the universe is really your oyster. So, why does most fanfic not push the boundaries more (i.e. engage in more transformative re-imaginings of the 40K universe)? Several reasons are possible:

*Mansauce? First, 40K is (to use one interviewee's term) 'mansauce' and they may be pretty happy with the universe thank you very much and not want it tampered with (i.e. they really just want 'more of' what they already have and like). Henry Jenkins has argued that female fanfiction involves women watching sci-fi and attempting to refocus it to fit in with their own interests and concerns (he uses the phrase, shifting it from a 'space opera' to a 'soap opera' to describe this). Men in contrast don't have to do it as the shows already explicitly cater for them. Equally, 40K does not have to be refocused/subverted to appeal to their (male) interests.

*The Constraints of the Universe? Second, the nature of the Universe as filled out by GW/Black Library means that certain issues cannot happen - i.e. why no emotional space marines? They dont have them. Why no sex? the role of celibacy in the 41st Millennium. Another interesting point raised by a few interviewees is that the 40K universe is not built around close character relationships per se, like Buffy, The X Files, The Professionals etc. Rather, the main character of the 40K Universe is the Universe itself, and, as one interviewee said, "you cant write slash fiction about a universe." If characters (and the relationships between them) are the beginnings of slash (i.e. the Kirk/Spock relationship, the 'buddy-show' format of the 1970s) then this is not possible within 40K fanfiction.

*Desire for Publication?Third, a few interviewees have said that they think that the ultimate goal of writing fanfic is to get noticed and then published by the Black Library. Their fanfic is, in other words, a calling card or a foot in the door (as occurs with fanfilm). If that's the case, then it's understandable why an author would want to display their mastery of the 40K canon, rather than wanting to subvert or challenge it with images of touchy-feely Space Marines.

**Why not 'more from'?

If fanfic writers are happy to look at exceptions, why not look at existing stories differently? (i.e. 'more from') To give an example, we know that Space Marines don't feel emotions within the canon, but what would happen if they did? To give an example, in the BL novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, Solun Decius is injured and infected with Nurgle when he is stabbed by Grulgor. Throughout the remainder of the novel, as Decius becomes more and more Nurgle-y there are fleeting references to his commander, Nathaniel Garro feeling some professional blame for what transpired, but neither these nor Garro's feelings at having to kill Decius at the end of the novel are explored. Officially, of course, as a Space Marine, Garro wouldn't feel anything. Also, there isn't a lot of interiority in the series (i.e. characters musing and reflecting). BUT a story could, while accepting that is true in the canon, still explore this in as an alternate take on the situation.

Well, this is where I am so far - lots of ideas coming together and a few more bubbling up. I also need to track down some more comedy 40K stories to see how they take on the grimdark of the 40k universe. While I'm doing some more thinking, here are some pix of the weekend's painting:

Saturday, 5 December 2009

I tend not to have any minis around for very long that I dont like the look of. I usually put stuff that I'm not happy with on ebay and use the money to buy new stuff. This means that there is no real 'chain of improvement' in my painting: from early mishaps to where i am now. I sometimes regret this. I wish sometimes that I had kept the first space marines that i painted when i got back into the hobby last July. It would be good to see the improvement.

So, In answer to the collaborative post, my answer would have to be "...are no longer in my possession". Having said that, rummaging through my painting box I did find my Blood Angels captain, which i suppose is technically the worst example of my painting that I currently still have.

I bought the mini as part of the first Black Reach boxset last year (I've probably bought about 3 more since then). I flogged the rest of the minis early this year, but kept this - no idea why. I can't think of a single thing that i like about it. Everything that i did with it, i now know how to do better; from highlighting to painting skin etc etc. Even the base isn't very good. The cloak has greenstuff on it when i was experimenting with making a cloak for a homemade Vulkan for my Salamanders.

Hopefully there is a big gap between him and Typhus, which is the most recent mini that I've painted.

First some shots of the 9,000pt game i played with Rob and Ian earlier in the week at the Wargamestore:

The Salamanders arrive via drop pod

The state of play at the half-way point. Lots of speedbumps for tanks, but still everything to play for (check out the old skool landraiders, rhinos and predators)

The endgame - a draw

and now for some Nurgle:

Firstly, here is the big cheese himself, Typhus. I've been reading The Flight of the Eisenstein this week, so I felt suitable inspired to paint him up last night and this morning. I'm really happy with him - especially loving the purple & yellow pus dripping all over him.

More details on the purple and yellow pus. The top of the termi armour looks really great: nice and festering. Speaking of festering, here are my plaguebearers:

I just have 6 more to paint to make 21 in total.

Again, I'm really loving the dried blood on the weapons and on their bodies.

Thursday, 26 November 2009

In an attempt to bridge the worlds of work and play, I've decided to write an article for eventual publication in an academic journal on the phenomenon of W40K fanfiction. Over the last decade or so, there has been a growing body of scholarship on fandom and fanfiction in particular. However, most (if not all) of this has focused on the types of fiction that female fans write and no one to date (as far as I am aware) has paid much attention to what males write.

For the project, I will be looking to interview as many fan-authors as possible on their reasons for writing among other things. The interviews will probably take about an hour and will be recorded for data analysis (any responses will be kept confidential and anonymous). I'll try and do as many face-to-face interviews as possible, but I'm suspecting that the majority of the interviewing will take place over the telephone.

Everyone who takes part will receive a £5 GW voucher as a way of thanking you for taking part. You will also be given a consent form to fill in to show that you have agreed to being interviewed (if you are under 18 this will also have to be signed by a parent/guardian)

Monday, 5 October 2009

After a weekend burst of creativity, I managed to finish off my 1k of CSMs last night. In total there are 1049 pts (counting the Terminator Lord as a Daemon Prince with wings). I might get the DP down the line, but at the moment i can't be bothered (plus I'm always saying that I don't want to paint another metal mini):

HQ

Daemon Prince(Mark of Slaanesh, Wings, Lash of Submission)155

Troops

10X CSMs (Aspiring Champion w Powerfist, 2 meltas)210

Rhino(T/L Bolter)40

10X CSMs (Aspiring Champion w Powerfist, 2 meltas)210

Rhino(T/L Bolter)40

9x Berzerkers(Skull Champion w Powerfist)229

Rhino(T/L Bolter)40

Heavy Support

Predator(Sponson Las cannons)130

The plan next is to take them up to 1.2k and then 1.5k by Xmas. A friend has given me a Defiler which would take my army up to 1.2k easily (running it with 2 close combat weapons). After that I will either go for another 10 CSMs (if for no other reason than I love painting them), another Defiler or maybe even another Daemon Prince. I'm edging towards another defiler though at the moment. I've also bought some Bloodletters on ebay last night for a tenner that I might use either for this army or a daemon army down the line somewhere.

Friday, 2 October 2009

The three rhinos and predator of my 1k list are now complete. All things being equal, I will paint the last 10 CSMs and then I will have my 1k force ready for their first game (and hopefully expansion up to 1.2k)

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

I now have only 330pts of the CSM project left to paint (The predator that I bought on ebay arrived today almost TWO WEEKS after I paid for it). The plan is to repaint the first rhino this weekend, do the predator the week after and then finish off with the last 10 CSMs.

In terms of costings, the whole 1k project cost me £97.44, not including the bases from Dark Art Miniatures. If I factor in the 30 urban bases, it would probably come in at around £105 or so.

Monday, 28 September 2009

One of the first things I did when I got back into the hobby last year was buy a copy of White Dwarf. As I'm also a bit of a completist and wanted to re-immerse myself, I also bought the previous 6-7 years worth of back issues on ebay. I also even bought second hand the only copy of WD that I had when I was a kid (issue 101) for sentimental reasons.

Recently, though, my love of the magazine has begun to wane and I've essentially stopped buying it as a default thing every month (although I did buy the last one to read about Space Hulk)

This is why I found this thread over at the Hogs of War interesting. The blogger has a subscription and he is going to review each issue so we know what we are potentially getting before we open up a copy in the shop and/or part with cash (I think another blogger is doing this, but I can't remember who).

So, why have I given up on WD? Well, several reasons really:

1. It's a sales catalogue. We all know this. I'm not saying anything new. WD is a sales catalogue, designed to promote GW product and make us all lust after it. This is fine and dandy, but I really want more from a magazine than just 'look at this!'. Also, the articles are contrived - all saying how great the new mins, rules, codex, book (basically any GW product) is and why YOU should want it (i.e. 'well, Jervis, I'm glad that you asked me about the quality of the moulds. Let me tell you...").

2. Battle reports are boring. I often liken battle reports to reading other peoples accounts of having sex. I'd much prefer to be playing a game or even watching people I know play than reading about people who I have never met playing games (games that in principle might never have even happened). The only reason I could see myself reading it is to glean tactics, but I can never figure them out from battle reports anyway.

3. Get the same for free from fans. Most, if not all, of WD content can be found on blogs and forums - often ages before it's covered in WD. There are also quite a few fanzines that, although not as professionally produced as WD, literally drip with fan love but which are also honest in their reviews. I'd much prefer to read an online zine or a pdf release that has loads of typos, bad photos etc. if it feels genuine and has a real honesty to it.

4. Narrow Content. Looking back a way, WD used to be much more diverse in the types of articles that it used to have. Not so long ago, you got articles on RPGs, Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic etc. Now, all you get is 40k, Warhammer and War(hammer)of the Ring (even LoTR SBG has been sidelined). I can understand them wanting to support the core games, but some scope would also be nice. They might even get people interested in non-core games.

5. Recycled Content. Linked with this, there is a SERIOUS amount of recycling going on in the painting articles. The general ethos with them appears to reflect the belief that either there is a rapid turnover in players or most players have no long term memory for how to paint faces, space marines etc etc. Also, linked with 3, most, if not all, of these kind of tips are available online in forums and blogs

Sunday, 27 September 2009

News is bubbling up that there is a W40K film in production. Ultramarines, according to the publicity blurb, is to be produced by the London-based company, Codex Pictures (the people behind the Lego BIONICLE films) and "will use CGI and state-of-the-art animation production techniques". It should also clock in at around 70 mins (and will, I'm guessing, most likely be released straight to DVD and sold in GW stores).

I am obviously excited about this, not least because of my interest in W40K fanfilms and fandom generally. My excitement, though, is tempered with a fair bit of pessimism as W40K fandom has been here before. Back in 2001, there were news reports that GW was in discussion with Dreamworks to produce a £25m film. The subsequent project, Bloodquest, however never made it off the starting blocks - allegedly being pulled because GW needed the cash to fund buying the rights to produce miniatures for the LoTR films. All that remains from the project, at least in the public domain, is a trailer for it over on youtube. My fear is that the project will either run out of money or, based on past form, GW will pull the plug on it before the project really gets going.

Spent the weekend painting 9 Khorne Berzerkers, taking my total for the project to 664pts. I debated for a while about whether to paint them in standard red armour or paint them to match the CSMs. In the end I decided on red out of tradition and because it matched up well with the CSMs colour-scheme anyway.

I just have 10 CSMs and the predator to paint up and then I have my full 1,000pt army ready to go. All things being equal, I think this week I will redo the first rhino to match the rest, next week I'll do the last 10 CSMs and then do the predator last (assuming it has arrived by then).

On a related note, paypal have agreed with me that the CSMs that I bought a few weeks back on ebay were duff and that the guy who sold them to me has to refund me and pay for return postage (as I requested right at the start). Looks like someone will be getting negative feedback...

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

I thought I would post this, as it may be of interest to some how I did my rust/burned rhino.

Stage 1: start with a rhino (or other vehicle)

Start with the basic chassis. I sprayed this with basic black spray from a hardware store. Citadel paints work great for this and really crack well.

Stage 2: cover it in glue

I know this image looks dodgy (lol) but drop splodges of glue on the section that you want to damage first. I used citadel glue as it smells nice (!!) and I've always found it works well for this. Leave it to dry a little and then start to smear it around using your index finger, tapping areas to make it bubble and crack. One thing that you might notice is that the citadel glue goes a bit wispy in places and creates trails of cotton-wool like fibres. These are a pain at first, but come off easily.

When you have finished a section, it should look something like this:

and when you have done the whole vehicle it should look something like this:

Stage 3: stippling boltgun metal

For the first layer of paint, take an old tank brush and load it up with boltgun metal. Clean most of the paint off the brush so a drybrush amount remains and then stipple (i think that's the right word for it) the paint on gently so as to not obscure the detail below. Work in small areas and then extend outwards. Leave the tracks until last and just drybrush those as standard. It should then look something like this:

Stage 4: random stippling of tin bitz

Next stipple tin bitz randomly. Use a standard-ish amount of paint and try to cover most, but not all, of the vehicle. It should then look something like this:

Stage 5: washes

The best bit :-) Take Devlan Mud and Gryphonne Sepia washes and douse the model in them, ideally so they are runny and mix into each other. Depending on how much you use, leave the vehicle a couple of hours for them to soak in.

Once its dried, add another wash of sepia in selected areas. It should then look something like this:

Stage 6: weapons etc

The final stage involves painting any weapons etc. that you want to add to the vehicle in the same way (minus the glue), and then affixing them. If you wanted to go a bit mad with it, you could maybe melt some edges a bit or add mud to the tracks.

After a series of stop-starts, work on the heart of the CSM project has been continuing apace for the last week or so after the battleforce arrived. I now have 395pts of the 1k painted up, leaving 600 or so points left (or 10 more CSMs, 9 Khorne Berzerkers, a rhino and a predator left to do).

I'm in the midst of painting the rhino at the moment, and will paint a step-by-step blog on painting it in uber-rust. I think I might also redo the rhino on the right to match the army colour scheme better.

I really like the colour scheme of the tactical squad, and I thought that i would experiment a bit with them and mix up standard CSM bits with some possessed limbs and torsos. Each one has a bolter in their right hands, but their left hands might be a demonic claw or whatever.

Finally, I'm not sure whether CSMs are meant to be cute or not, but if they are, i think this one is - although I wouldn't fancy meeting him down a dark alley lol

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

Yay! the CSM battleforce box has finally arrived! I'm not proud to admit that i did shake the box several times before opening it and savoured the weight of the plastic therein. I decanted the lid of the box like it was holding a fine win (i know im stretching the similes here) and just pored over each sprue in turn.

Yikes

I've already painted up 5 of my CSM rust marines and they look really great. The scheme is black undercoat followed by drybrushes of boltgun metal and tinbitz, then devlan mud and sepia washes doused on them (the mini is basically drowned in it). Finally, once they are dry, a final splodge of sepia wash finishes the job off. Will upload pix when its brighter.

My plan is to paint 5 more to make a squad up and then do the second squad, the rhino, Khorne Berzerkers and then the predator in that order. I'm also planning to do a bit of low-level customisation on each one by mixing the possessed and standard CSM sprue parts together so, for example, I can have each marine with a bolter and then some sort of demon bit on his other arm, add a demon head rather than a CSM head etc etc. Each demon bit will be done in a red Khorne colour-scheme. I'd love to do nurgle, but wouldnt know where to begin and i have 4 shades of red paint lol.

Friday, 11 September 2009

Thought that i might do something a bit different with the second rhino. I've done battle-damage before on other vehicles, but i really got carried away with this one. The idea is that the rhino has been hit with something hot and fiery (possibly also a bit demonic) and/or has really seen some action over the last 10,000 years.

Inspired by the look, I think I might do my CSMs as heavily rusted as well.